Steroid Widows

Though we all know, lots of wife’s and girlfriends really lost their man due to the bodybuilding lifestyle, this is not the purpose of this blogpost.

I know that my wife always complained about the fact that during a cycle, she told me I was detached, selfish didn’t care as much as usually for her or our daughters. She always hated it when I took my first shot.

I also neglect my social life, friends and family, I don’t want to visit them or have them visit us, cause I want to train, rest, eat and sleep early, and I don’t use alcohol during cycle. Plus I get a very short fuse and a bad temper, get angry or irritated very quick towards my wife and children, but toward strangers much more, go into a fight in traffic, when I think someone parks wrong or drives slowly, you know it too, I assume.

And I’ve seen it happen with good friends and gym-buddies also, initially good relations are sometimes thoroughly demolished by the use of AAS. Let us take a look at the two most direct relationships interacting aspects of damage by AAS, impotence and violent outbursts.

Impotence or a lack of libido

During the cycle the sex will generally increase. In some individuals, moreover, much stronger than in others. Most probably also dose and compound related. In some cases this can lead to the imposition of sex, both to the partner and also to other women.” Sexual harassment” is an understatement in this regard.” Rape” or “attempted rape” shows the reality far better. Also within a committed relationship. After the cycle, or with continuous use, comes the inevitable backlash: The sex drive decreases and the man who first could not stay away from his wife, has turned into a chemical eunuch, which spends more on its no physical attention. She has become a steroid widow.

What is impotence?

As a rule, the term impotence is used when a man is no longer able to get, or maintain a proper erection. This can have several causes, both physical and mental, but the third option, the "chemical impotence", I want to discuss here. Various medications can cause this, such as antihypertensives, tranquilizers, corticosteroids, estrogens, tricyclic antidepressants and some anti-asthma drugs (think clenbuterol). In the majority of cases there is the inability to get an erection, or to maintain it for more than one minute. An antidepressant Fluoxetine (Prozac) usually does not hinders the erection, but only leads to a temporary anorgasmia, the inability to reach orgasm.

Needless to say, impotence arising from the use of AAS belongs to the group of chemically induced disorders. When impotence is arising through the use of certain medications, such as blood pressure lowering drugs, or large amounts of female hormones in prostate ailments, that function is restored almost immediately after stopping the medication. By AAS the same happens usually, it just takes a lot longer for recovery. Three to six months are no exception. With long-term continuous use, the testicles may become damaged so much, that they become unable to produce testosterone. Impotence is then irreversible. This man will remain impotent for the rest of his life, unless efforts are made to chemically restore some of the assets. That can only be done by administer exogenous testosterone, and even then success is not always guaranteed.

Impotence is often confused with a lack of libido (sex drive). Well, it is true that the lack of sex drive seriously impedes the start of an erection, but there is indeed a difference. In the first place, there is an interaction: a lack of sexual desire may underlie erectile dysfunction, but the reverse may just as well be true. The inability to get an erection or to maintain it, decreases the sex drive.

Violence

There are great intra-individual differences, some people are jealous and/or aggressive by nature, maybe due to high endogenous testosterone production or a bad childhood, who knows, some are friendly and calm. Genetics or hormones?

Not all people that beat or kill their wife or others are on roids. But the question is, do roids cause those feelings or just amplify them?

But when it happens media attention always focusses on steroids, that’s why also outside the bodybuilding scene the term “Roidrage” has become well-known. Especially if famous athletes kill or beat their wife or kill her. If it was due to alcohol it wouldn’t be so spectacular, and very often when this happens, the perpetrator was a multi-drug user, It is well-known that steroids mixed with alcohol and sedatives and/or recreational drugs form an explosive cocktail.

Picture: IFBB bodybuilder Craig Titus and IFBB Fitness Competitor Kelly Ryan were once on top of the world. The two not only formed one of the world’s most recognizable fitness couples but they were also right at the top of nearly every IFBB competition they entered and had plenty of financial success too. Until they were convicted for the murder on their assistant Melissa James.

The 2007 Benoit family tragedy that saw pro-wrestler Chris Benoit murder his wife Nancy and young son Daniel, before committing suicide, Benoit's body contained 10 times the normal level of testosterone, as well as amounts of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and the painkiller hydrocodone, authorities said.

Bodybuilder James Bellas, who also abused anabolic steroids, strangled girlfriend Jill Fisher after she was late in replying his message. "Bellass is the sort of man parents dread their daughters meeting and forming a relationship with. He has a total lack of respect for women, and when fueled by alcohol quickly resorts to the immediate use of extreme violence."

Picture: On the morning of July 9 2015, beautiful fitness model Jenna Renee Webb took to Instagram to post photos of bruising she says she suffered at the hands of her MMA fighter boyfriend Travis Browne. In June 2016 a judge has pronounced their divorce.

It would be easy to post more cases but you get the picture.

Steroids that yields AGGRESSION

Some steroids are known among bodybuilders, powerlifters, strongmen and fighters to yield aggression.

Mibolerone (Cheque Drops) is substance cage-fighters used before entering the cage, it became notorious after Mike Tyson bit of a piece of ear from Holyfield.

Halotestin (Fluoxymesterone) is known for its pronounced effect on aggression, you can simply use 10mgs prior to a workout But it is also known to increase your libido next to testosterone. The result is something you can guess.

In an article, I once wrote about Halotestin, “make sure you are never alone with a girl you desire but is not yours while on Halo.”

MethylTestosterone is also known to increase your aggression and used before an intense work-out. But some bodybuilders use it for short periods together with Dianabol (methandrostenolone) in a cycle. Also Trenbolone especially the Acetate version is said to increase aggression. And last what we all know.. aggression also increases if the doses increase, sounds logical, right, still some don’t understand. And .. other recreational and some prescription drugs and/or alcohol abuse synergistically enhances aggression caused by AAS.

Again I stumbled about a thread that expressed exactly what I meant:

“I have a question does taking any or a specific anabolic steroid trigger jealous feelings? The reason why i ask this a few of my friends are well into their cycle and they like to bridge on cycle with another , while they are off season not a hint of jealously toward there partner , wife , girlfriend ... I thought its simply insecurity and lack of trust , so i thought but that isn't the case .Very dedicated gym goers and great profession , but they treat their partners with dominating jealously over stupid things , there jealous of a co worker of hers , stuff like that . But when they are off the cycle normal as of a different person all together , is it safe to assume that perhaps anabolic steroids trigger something , this observation are from 2 individuals and i was just curious.... any thoughts”

“ I read an article about Jealously and how it has been linked to the part of the brain that feels physical and emotional pain. In the same area envy was found. This area makes us feel that sense of delight through others misfortune. I don't believe high estrogen levels were linked to how we feel pain. Maybe higher estrogen levels could help us relate to others pain but I'm not sure. I do think that higher Testosterone levels makes us more aggressive, competitive and maybe less sympathetic. Maybe these effects from testosterone could cause us to become more jealous while on.”

“I'm currently running test, mast and tren with an AI and have been incredibly jealous/pissed off about past lovers of my wife, when I've never felt this way before. I have no marital problems, actually my marriage is absolutely perfect, and our sex life has always been amazing. This is definitely from the aas cause I know my estrogen levels are within range, I get bloodwork.”

“I want to add to this at the one time or another i too have felt jealous , although im against this type of behavior , not a jealous , envious , etc . When on stacked supplements , sustenon , d-bol , deca later into the cycle i tend to be more protective in a jealous nonviolent kind of way , hard to put into words , and reading the comments how , i wonder how can you lower your estrogen level if that's whats causing it . On other thought you have CHRIS BENOIT double murder and killed himself .....Did he do this because of similar feelings , did he perhaps have some jealous issues due to estrogen levels???? it may not happened to everyone but its an issue .... how can we prevent this ?”

Sometimes the term “Steroid Widows” I used in this blogpost figuratively to appoint girls and wives of Iron Warriors that are so focused on their training-cycle-nutrition-body that they totally neglect their wife, also sexually.

But sometimes this term becomes a bitter reality, like in the case of Ed Van Amsterdam dead at 40 of an apparent heart attack in 2013. Ed was an IFBB Pro bodybuilder out of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

It’s not hard to produce an immense list of Iron Warriors that died way to early.

McAndrew

Historically, researchers expected an increase in testosterone levels to inevitably lead to more aggression, and this didn't reliably occur," says Frank McAndrew, a professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. Indeed, the latest research about testosterone and aggression indicates that there's only a weak connection between the two. And when aggression is more narrowly defined as simple physical violence, the connection all but disappears.

Castration experiments demonstrate that testosterone is necessary for violence, but other research has shown that testosterone is not, on its own, sufficient. In this way, testosterone is less a perpetrator and more an accomplice—one that's sometimes not too far from the scene of the crime.

For example: regardless of their gender, the most violent prisoners have higher levels of testosterone than their less violent peers. Yet scientists hypothesize that this violence is just one manifestation of the much more biologically and reproductively salient goal of dominance.

"From what we can tell now, testosterone is generated to prepare the body to respond to competition and/or challenges to one's status," McAndrew observes. "Any stimulus or event which signals either of these things can trigger an increase in testosterone levels."

It makes sense—in the short-term, testosterone helps make both males and females bigger, stronger and more energetic, all of which would be useful for winning a physical or even mental contest. Testosterone is also responsible for libido in both sexes, and it powers our drive for social dominance, which is one way that humans decide who gets to mate with whom.

Arguably, the weak correlation between testosterone and violence gives us reason to be optimistic about the human race: Whereas other animals battle over mates as a direct result of their seasonal fluctuations in testosterone and other hormones, humans have discovered other ways to establish pecking orders. Which isn't to say that we can't rapidly adapt to the modern-day manifestations of our violent past: McAndrews's work demonstrated that one surefire way to raise a man's testosterone level is to allow him to handle a gun.